


with the taste of nectar upon his lips

by briony_larkin



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Unplanned Pregnancy, have fun playing spot the character, idiots in love honestly, losers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 00:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11002053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briony_larkin/pseuds/briony_larkin
Summary: after world war two, america sent military officials overseas to help restructure germany. colonel henry douglas is one of them. his personal assistant, sophia, goes with him. the middle of winter will stunt the growth of plants, but not of people.





	with the taste of nectar upon his lips

**Author's Note:**

> so i watched a movie in history about the nuremburg trials that was, you know, informative and all that, but also the main lawyer dude had a thing with his secretary, and thus, this was born. oops.
> 
> no, it's not exactly "well-researched" or "historically accurate" or, heaven forbid, "good," but, you know
> 
> minor edits made 1/12/18

“Persephone, please, don't go,” her mother pleaded yet again.

“Mother...” she sighed and snapped her suitcase shut. “For the last time, it's my job. I have to go.”

“Oh, sweetie. I know.” Sarah squeezed her daughter's hand tight. “It's just... the way he looks at you... it worries me.”

Persephone shook her head. “Mother, he doesn't look at me in any way. Henry is married.” And even if he weren’t... no, it just couldn’t happen.

“I know! And I can't help but worry he'll be like your father, another man looking for a distraction, willing to leave a woman and his child all alone.” Sarah tugged her bottom lip between her teeth and furrowed her brow.

“Mother...” Persephone’s expression softened. “Not every man is my father.”

“I know, I know. Still...”

“You worry. It’s alright. I understand. But please, let me go. Everything will be alright, I promise.” Persephone wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck. The two women clung to each other for a moment, briefly suspended in time, the spot of life in an otherwise pale, cold, sterile world.

Sarah pulled back a few inches and smoothed back her daughter’s wild curls. Her palm rested there against Persephone’s cheek. “I put two dollars in your bag.”

“Mother!” Persephone’s mind went wild. Sarah wouldn’t have enough now to pay a bill or buy some necessity, and she could not let her mother want for anything.

“Hush, child, let me finish. I’ve been saving the past couple months since you told me you were probably going to have to leave with that man.” Sarah’s dislike was quite evident, and Persephone struggled to hold back a giggle.

“His name is Henry.”

“Didn’t I just tell you not to interrupt me?” Sarah scolded mockingly.

“Sorry, sorry,” Persephone said, the half smile on her face showing her bright white teeth, looking even whiter against red lips and coffee skin.

“That’s right. Now, it’s emergency money. It should be enough if you need to telegraph me for anything, more than once. Don’t you waste it,” she warned, “but don’t feel like you can’t use it, either.”

“Yes, Mother.” Persephone kissed her on the cheek and grabbed her suitcase.

“Now go on,” Sarah said, waving her arms as if to shoo Persephone away.

“I thought you didn’t want me to leave,” Persephone teased.

“Don’t get smart with me,” Sarah said with a half-smile breaking through onto her face. “Besides, if you don’t leave soon, you’ll be late. I won’t have any child of mine with a reputation for being rude.”

“Alright, Mother,” Persephone smiled, but it had an edge of tragedy, of melancholy. “I’m leaving.”

“I love you,” Sarah called as Persephone walked to the door.

She turned around. “I love you too,” she said, and she let the door fall closed behind her.

******

“Sophia. Good. Right on time,” Henry yawned, snapping his pocket watch closed and looking at Persephone sleepily. “The plane should be here soon.”

Panic rose in her throat. She'd known, of course, that they'd fly. Planes are so much faster than boats, and just as safe, nowadays. But she couldn't think about it too long.

“Do you know,” Persephone said, “I haven't been on a vacation in so long, I've forgotten entirely how to pack! Of course,” she added hurriedly, “I brought all the documents and things, I just mean I've forgotten how to pack for _myself_. I must've told myself a dozen times to pack my pomegranate earrings, but here I am, and there they are, at home on my dressing table!”

Henry looked at her, a half-smile curling at the corner of his lips. “Sophia,” he said softly. “You're babbling. Is something wrong?”

She looked at him, blue eyes cutting into her stained-glass hazel ones, and her heartbeat made itself ever louder and more insistent in her ears. “It's fine,” she said brightly, “I just haven't ever flown before.”

He hummed and nodded. “Don't worry. It'll be alright.”

His hand found itself on her shoulder and it should have felt friendly, or maybe fatherly, but it didn't. She wanted to let him pull her closer, but she knew better. Henry might not be her father, but it was still all-too-easy for Persephone to become her mother.

Her eyebrows quirked up, smudges on her sunlight skin. “Thanks,” she said, only a little dryly.

He laughed, then, and she thought that anyone who'd heard him laugh could not think him cold, no matter his reputation, not when his laugh was such a warm, fire-and-coffee thing.

Right then, the plane came to a halt in front of them. “Here,” he said, offering his arm.

“Thanks,” she said, more seriously this time. He was only being polite, she told herself, only polite. It was more obvious now than ever now, her small, dark hand tucked into the crook of his arm. He was older, wealthy, married, and white.

She wasn't any of those things.

Persephone could pass. Her hair had telltale signs of her heritage, but still, she could pass. Her mother insisted on her passing so that she could have a better-paying job. So she did. She went by Sophia at work, and told anyone who asked that her mother was Italian and she'd grown up in the south, and yes, she was rather tan, wasn't she?

That was why Henry scared her mother so. Persephone’s father had been older, wealthy, married, and white. Sarah had been young, working for him, and half-Black, like Persephone. They'd fallen in love-- or at least, Sarah thought they had. As soon as she told him she was pregnant, he fired her and told her he didn't love her. And she was on her own, no money, no husband, and pregnant.

But Sarah was determined and resourceful. She bought herself a ring and told people her husband died in an automobile accident, wasn't it tragic? Eyebrows raised a little when Persephone was born as light as she was, but people see what they want to see. People who knew Sarah saw a woman with her daughter, people who didn't saw a nanny and her charge. And that was fine by Sarah. She was determined to spare her daughter every heartache possible.

It would be spitting in the face of all her mother's hard work should Persephone do anything stupid with Henry. That, above all their other differences, was why nothing could ever happen, even if Henry showed interest.

It still might break her heart, but, well, her mother couldn't protect her from everything.

*****

Germany was awful. She'd known it would be, of course. Henry was General Patton’s right-hand-man, having fought with him in the first World War. (He'd actually been a year too young to have enlisted, but that didn't stop him.)

And as Henry's personal assistant, she knew everything. She'd known about the bombing that had been ordered, but she didn't expect it to be like this.

Almost every building was decimated, piles of rubble strewn all about, children playing on the ruins while their mothers boiled bits of old shoes to make broth for supper. The ordinarily beautiful autumn leaves that had fallen into the crevices seemed to be, instead, blood and bile. Everything in the downtown area stunk, she'd been horrified to learn, of dead that still lay beneath the fallen buildings.

The building his offices were in seemed dangerous to her. The lights flickered constantly, there were holes in the floors, ceilings, and walls, and the whole building seemed to live in a haze-- of a better past, of another world, of lingering evil, she wasn't sure.

And she hated to admit it, but some of the locals frightened her. They didn't seem happy to have Americans in their midst, unsurprisingly. There weren't many German men, but there were men, many of them American, that didn't seem like they'd listen if a girl said no. It was then (well, especially then) that she liked having Henry with her. He made her feel safe.

“Sophia,” he called from inside his office.

The place had seen much improvement in the week since they'd been there. She could walk comfortably across the floors, although there were still some holes in the walls. Lights flickered as she crossed the room, but dust clouds didn't float up with every step. “Yes, Henry?”

“I need to go back to the states.” He was watching her carefully, she could tell.

“Oh.” Quickly, she scolded herself. Now was not the time to be anything less than friendly and professional. “What do you need me to do?”

“Call Weaver’s office and have him set up a plane for me, and help me pack, would you?”

Sometimes, he reminded her of a bruise, with his black hair and blue eyes, and the way that spot in her heart hurt when he pressed it the right way. “Of course, Henry.”

“Thank you. Honestly, Sophia, I don't know what I'd do without you.” He smiled his crooked smile below his tender eyes, and Persephone’s heart could either break or burst right then.

“Don't be silly,” she told him, “you'd do just fine without me.” She left, black heels clacking on new wood floors, and he watched her leave.

“No,” he whispered. “I don't think I would.”

*****

Persephone kept herself busy without him. That way, she didn't have to think. Not about being alone, or afraid, or worst of all, missing him.

The morning after he left, she determined that she would find them a real place to stay, with running water and electricity and beds with sheets. She left the office building after doing some basic work answering telegraphs, filing, and recording messages for Henry.

As she pushed open the heavy doors of the building, a young man fell into step beside her. Persephone recognized him, of course. Thomas Addison. He was younger than she was, and she was inclined to think Henry saved his life or something, the way he worshipped him.

“Are you following me?” she asked, more out of curiosity than anything.

He reddened. “A little.”

She only raised her eyebrows.

“Sorry, Miss Sophia, ma'am, but Colonel Douglas asked me to accompany you if you left the building. He said he wanted to ensure your safety in his absence, ma'am.”

The corners of her mouth threatened to turn up in all their revealing glory, but she stopped that. She knew better. Letting people see how you felt was the easiest way to get hurt. “That's fine.”

She set off again, keeping a brisk pace.

“May I ask where we're going, ma'am?”

“You may.”

A beat of silence, then--

“Where are we going, ma'am?”

“We,” she said, clambering into a military jeep and indicating to Thomas that he should drive, “are going to find a place with two vacant rooms, proper beds, and bathrooms for the Colonel and me to stay in.”

*****

“Sophia,” Henry breathed. His eyes locked onto hers as he exited the airplane.

“Henry,” she replied, _too softly, too tenderly_ , something inside her warned. She shook herself and said briskly, “It's good to have you back.” Persephone slipped her hand through the crook of his arm and led him to the jeep where Thomas was waiting.

Henry collapsed into the backseat. A brief, intense longing to hold him, weave her hands through his hair, sweep her thumbs over his sharp cheekbones, overtook her.

But longing was for fools.

“I found a place for us to stay.”

“Really?” Henry mumbled, doing his best to sound interested.

“Yes, a German banker’s house-- or, well, an ex-banker. It's nice, and it's only he and his wife there. They're an elderly couple. She's a perfectly nice woman who will cook for us and everything. Between you and me, I think they're just happy for the money and the company.” Persephone tugged a black curl out of her perfectly coiffed hairstyle and wound it around her fingers.

Henry watched her through half-lidded eyes. “Why?” he asked simply.

“Honestly?” she said, a little wryly. “I got sick of not having running water for my baths.”

He chuckled, pushing the image of her in a bath out of his head. “Alright.”

It took them only a few more minutes to reach the house, a lovely, two-story, fairytale cottage of a thing. Thomas helped Persephone and Henry out, then saluted, and drove off.

Persephone led Henry inside, where they were greeted by a frail, white-haired woman with a kindly air about her. “Ah, Frau Heidrich. This is Colonel Douglas.”

“Hello,” Henry said, offering his hand.

“Hello,” the lady returned, shaking it. “Vill you require dinner, Fraulein Sophia?”

“Something light, maybe,” Persephone answered. She unconsciously took Henry's hand and led him to his bedroom, telling him, “‘Light’ means only one pound of lard instead of two.”

The undertone in her voice was like the golden sunlight of the first day of spring, though the days outside grew colder and shorter. Henry was so exhausted he could hardly walk, but for her, he managed to summon a laugh.

She kept walking, talking and laughing the whole way. (She didn't really laugh, but it didn't matter. He could hear it in her voice.) Never had she seemed to shine more brightly and fully, summer, youth, and life, and he--

He could never be other than what he was: winter, age, and death.

“This is your room,” she said, entering a fair-sized, clean, bright little space. He would swear he could feel her very essence somehow contained within the walls.

Then Henry saw the bed, and all he could think about was laying down. He set his suitcase on the dresser and laid down on the bed.

Sophia started unpacking for him, talking all the while, but he was rather past the point of hearing. “Well, my goodness, you pack very neatly, Henry.”

(She wasn't aware of it herself, but she was asking a question. Did your wife, pack for you, Henry? Are you in love with her?

And if he had heard her, he would have told her the truth. No. No, she didn't. No. No, I'm not.)

Persephone gasped. There, resting between two of his shirts, was a little black drawstring pouch with a note attached to it that read simply, “Sophia,” in Henry's looping scrawl.

She opened it and saw only a glimmer at the bottom of the bag. She turned it over, and her pomegranate earrings fell into her palm. “Oh,” she gasped, “Henry, how did you even--”

But when Persephone looked over, Henry's eyes were shut and his breathing was deep and even. She smiled. Falling asleep fully clothed, atop the covers, like a child...

Gently, Persephone slipped his shoes off and drew a blanket over his sleeping firm. She felt herself being drawn to him, the inexorable pull of a magnet. On impulse, she tipped forward and pressed her lips to his cheek. “Good night, Henry.”

*****

“Thomas brought an automobile for us to use,” Persephone informed him the next morning as they finished their breakfast. “Thank you,” she added quietly to Frau Heidrich as she cleared the table.

It was strange, to have someone cooking for her, much less someone that was being paid, but Persephone did her best to act used to it.

“Excellent,” Henry said, thanking Frau Heidrich too as she took his plate. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Yes, let me go get my coat.”

Henry followed her to the foyer and took her coat off the hook, holding it so she could slip her arms into it.

She waited for him to put his own coat on, then he offered her his arm and escorted her to the automobile.

“Thank you, Thomas.”

“My pleasure, sir.” He grinned jauntily and drove off.

Persephone used the short drive to the office to bring Henry up to date on the newest ideas to help repair Germany. “Major Leroy favors a wall between the part of Germany claimed by us and our allies, and the part of Germany claimed by the USSR.”

Henry scoffed and exited the car. He came around to open Persephone’s door, and muttered, “What a dipshit.”

She couldn't hold back her laughter. The tips of Henry's ears turned a bit red when he realized what he'd said. “Sorry, habit,” he apologized.

“Hardly the first time I've heard that language,” she said dryly.

“Still...”

“No, forget about it. Come on, I want you to see the office. It looks so different, you won't believe it.” She led him to the office.

The lights didn't flicker, the windows were clean, and there was new wallpaper to go with the new flooring and ceiling. There were clean furnishings, pictures on the walls, and potted flowers that made everything feel light and fresh. _Like she does._

“And here,” Sophia said, gesturing to a paper with piles of nearly stacked papers, “I've got everything organized by messages, reports, and ideas, then narrowed into subcategories...”

A gust of wind burst into the room, knocking Persephone’s carefully stacked documents into chaos. She shrieked and rushed to the window. Henry dropped to his knees and started gathering the papers. She knelt next to him.

They reached for the same paper, hands touching, and electricity sparking between them.

“Oh,” she whispered. His hand wrapped around hers and squeezed, in tandem with her heartbeat.

“Thank you, Sophia.” The way he said that name, like it tasted, sweet, like he was holding on to the feel of it in his mouth-- she wondered how he would say her real name, and suddenly, she couldn't hold it back any longer.

“That isn't my name.” Henry looked at her quizzically, and she elaborated, “Sophia is kind of... a nickname. My real name is Persephone.”

“Persephone,” he repeated, and she didn't know how she expected hearing him say her real name to feel, but it felt better, like the first drop of rain from a thunderstorm. He sat there, his hand still on hers, eyes locked, pulling them closer and closer together. She could feel his breath on her cheek when he said, “Henry is my middle name. My first name is Aidoneus.”

“Can I call you Aides?” she asked teasingly.

“Persephone,” he smiled, “You can call me whatever you want.”

A knock on the door, and the spell shattered, glass on the concrete, but although things can be broken, they cannot be undone.

*****

“It’s alright, Aides.”

“No, it isn’t! He made me look the fool in front of everyone, dammit!” Aides slammed his open palm down on the hallway table, a bolt of thunder, of fear.

Persephone flinched away.

She was afraid. Afraid of him. “I’m sorry,” he said, contrition painted on his face. “I... I didn’t mean to scare you, ‘Sephone.” He took a half-step forward, looking like he would stretch his arms out, like he wanted to hold her, but he thought better of it.

“We can all just blame Leroy, if you like.” She graced him with a tentative half-smile, and every ounce of anger left him then. How could he be angry in the face of her smile?

“That sounds good to me.” This time, Aides did step forward. She wasn’t sure who moved first, but suddenly, his arms rested low on her waist, her hands were on his shoulders, and too-slowly but too-fast all at once, his lips were on his.

She tasted like pomegranates and summer and nectar, and he couldn’t get enough of her. He smoothed his hand over her cheek, pushing her hair back and tangling his fingers at the back of her head, pulling her closer.

He tasted like winter and pine trees and mint, clean and sharp and bright. Her hands slipped up his shoulders until they were clinging to the back of his neck.

They were a trainwreck, or a thunderstorm, destructive or beautiful, an object in motion that could not be stopped. He bent down, and one of his arms swept under her thighs, scooping her up, pressing all her softness against the hard planes of his body.

They stumbled into his bedroom, woven together like a tapestry, beautiful and terrible at once. He laid her down gently against the sheets, lily-white and poppy-red.

Persephone swore she was trembling, pulling him down to kiss her, sliding her hands under his shirt buttons.

Her mother would kill her, but she'd think about that later.

Aides might break her, but she'd think about that later.

Now, it was only Persephone and Aides, in this moment, the electricity sparking off of their bodies, the heat, the taste, the feel of them moving together.

Now, it was only them.

*****

It happened again. She shouldn't have let it, but she did. How could she say no? This was her chance, and it wouldn't come again.

And it didn't stop happening. Night after night, week after week, she found herself waking in Aides’s bed. But Persephone was careful. She may be taking a risk, but she couldn't throw everything that her mother had worked for away.

She took on the role of hostess for any social events that were insisted on by any niceties. (Not by Aides. He certainly didn't care for the parties.)

There was one such party Christmas Eve. Frau Heidrich’s home was the most suitable place, as it was both undamaged and the residence of a senior military official. That made Persephone hostess. She spoke with everyone, smoothed things over between Frau Heidrich and some Russian officers, and disappeared into the kitchen, wishing she and Aides could be alone, or in a public relationship...

But wishing only breaks your heart.

Aides saw Persephone leave for the kitchen and followed. Slowly, he came up behind her. He said her name softly, like she would break if he was too hard, too loud, and wrapped an arm around her waist. “I got you something,” he whispered to the crook of her neck, and he pressed a kiss there.

Persephone turned around, her back to the kitchen counter, and her forehead pressed to his. He slid his hand into his suitcoat pocket and drew out a very familiar little drawstring pouch. This time, the slip of paper attached had her real name written on it. She opened it, and a delicate little necklace tipped into her palm.

It was simple, only a pendant and a chain, both of gold. The pendant was a rose of rubies, with diamonds decorating the tips of the petals and in the center of the flower. There wasn't any doubt in her mind that it was all real.

Tears gleamed in her eyes, far brighter than the diamonds in her hand. “It's beautiful.”

“Not as beautiful as you.” Immediately, Aides looked embarrassed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “That was cheesy, sorry. I'm not very good at this.”

“At what?” As soon as Persephone asked, she regretted it. If he labelled it... it could stop being what she wished it would be.

“At talking to pretty women.”

“I think you're doing alright so far.” At least he hadn't said having an affair, or something equally awful. And it was a compliment. So why did hearing it make her sad?

Aides knew something was wrong. Persephone didn't look right, and her lightness sounded forced. But he didn't push it. He didn't want anything to intrude on their happiness, not now. Not now.

*****

“Colonel Douglas’s office?” Persephone answered.

“Patch me through,” a disdainful female voice said on the other end off the line.

“May I ask who's calling?”

“Insolent girl,” the woman muttered. “It's his wife.”

Persephone felt the words hit her like a wrecking ball. She couldn't respond, only transferred the call to Henry's office with trembling fingers.

“Persephone, who is it? Persephone?”

The voice-- Aides’s wife-- snapped, “It's Leah. Who the hell is Persephone?”

Aides sighed. “She's just my assistant, Leah, calm down.”

Just his assistant. Of course. She knew it, she did, but it still stung.

“Care to explain the papers my lawyer received, Henry?”

But she called him Henry. Not Aides or Aidon or Aidoneus, even. Henry.

“Sure,” he said pleasantly. “I'm divorcing you.”

“Excuse me?” Leah spluttered.

“We weren't in love when we got married. It was just for social advancement. We aren't in love now, either. We haven't ever been. Honestly, I don't think we even like each other. I see no reason we should stay miserable.” He tapped his pen on the table, a beat that echoed Persephone’s rapid-fire heart.

“But what about the children?”

“Leah,” he sighed, “we don't have children. If this is about money, read through the papers. I promise, it's more than fair.”

“Fine! You know what? I'll sign the papers. But don't think I don't know you've got a whore on the side. And I'll find out who she is, mark my words!” Leah slammed the receiver down, and a dial tone echoed through the rooms, like the static in Persephone’s mind.

She stood up so fast that her knees banged against the underside of the desk. Aides rushed into the room.

“Are you alright?”

“Take me home, please,” Persephone said through gritted teeth. She was pale, swaying on her feet. “I don't feel well.”

“I will,” he said, walking over and placing his hand on the small of her back, “but tell me, is this about the call?”

Persephone shook her head. “I can't talk about it right now, please, just take me home, I want to go home.”

Aides stood there for a second, hoping, praying she'd say something else. But there was nothing. “Of course I'll take you home. Of course.”

*****

Frau Heidrich clicked her tongue. “Oh, liebling... Are you, vhat is the vord? Nauseous? Are you nauseous, liebling?”

“A little,” Persephone lied. She'd really, she thought, spent all afternoon vomiting up everything she'd ever eaten.

Frau Heidrich cast a critical eye over Persephone. “Are you vith child? Do not worry, I will not judge you if it is so.”

“I... I don't know,” Persephone said in a horrified whisper.

“Oh...” She smoothed Persephone’s hair sympathetically. “Poor liebling. When was your last monthly?”

“It's a few days late, but I wasn't worried yet.” A cold dread settled in her stomach, a block of ice just laying there. The apple didn't fall far from the tree after all, in spite of the tree's best efforts.

“And you and the Colonel are...?”

“Yes.”

“Ach, liebling...” Frau Heidrich patted Persephone’s hand. “You go lay down. I vill make peppermint tea.”

“Frau Heidrich?” Persephone called. She managed to summon a smile. “Call me Persephone.”

“Call me Lorelai, dear.”

*****

A knock on the door startled Persephone awake. She opened her eyes to see Aides, and she slammed her eyes shut.

“I'm not in the mood to talk,” she said, eyes closed resolutely.

“We don't have to talk.”

Her jaw tightened. “I'm not in the mood for _that_ , either.”

“No, that's not what I meant...” He sighed. “Do you want... Can I just... hold you?”

Slowly, she opened her eyes, and she finally saw what her mother had seen every time Aides looked at Persephone. Tenderness, softer than a baby's first laugh, admiration that burned like a gulp of whiskey, and something she didn't dare name that contained all the magic of first snowfalls and flowers and kisses. She nodded.

Gently, carefully, he lowered himself onto her bed, pulling her against his chest and kissing the top of her riotous curls. “I didn't get married because we were in love. I got married because it was what my parents wanted.”

Persephone shut her eyes again, as if by doing so, she could ward off pain.

“Please,” he begged, “just let me say this. It didn't matter to me one way or another if I were married or not because I'd never been in love. But now that I know how it feels, I can't bear to be married to someone I don't love for one second longer.”

She knew where this was going, what he would say, but she couldn't have him say it, not now, not when there was a blue china teacup that had held peppermint tea only minutes ago sitting on her bedside table, accusing her. “Please, Aides,” she whispered. “Please, sing to me?”

He never could deny her a thing. A slow love song came to his mind and his lips. His voice vibrated through Persephone. She still saw that blue teacup when she closed her eyes, but eventually, she slept.

He waited until she was asleep to tell her that he loved her.

*****

In the dark of night, Persephone woke. She untangled herself from Aides and-- quietly, quietly-- haphazardly threw things in her suitcase. For a half-second, her hand paused over her necklace and earrings, but she picked them up and slipped them into a pocket.

She rushed down the stairs and halted in her tracks when she saw the kitchen light on.

“Persephone, vhat are you doing?” Frau Heidrich-- Lorelai-- asked.

Persephone turned to Lorelai with tears in her eyes. “I have to leave, I need to go home,” she sniffled.

Lorelai hummed. “Would you like some tea first?” She didn't give Persephone the chance to answer, just took the girl's hand and pulled her into the kitchen. “Now tell me why you really want to leave. Are you with child?”

Persephone sniffled. “I-- I think so. I'm never late, and I don't ever feel like this before... before...”

“We’ll visit a doctor tomorrow, far out of the city. But that doesn't answer my question, liebling.”

“I can't tell him,” she whispered. “I can't.”

“Vhyever not?”

“He'll marry me.”

“And that is bad?” Lorelai asked, pouring tea into another blue china teacup.

“His friends will abandon him, it will hurt his career, it will be a huge scandal!” The tears pricked at Persephone’s eyes.

Lorelai was silent for a moment, but only a moment. “Did you have a father?”

“No, it was only my mother. But I didn't miss my father! I was fine!”

“And vhat kind of man vas your father?”

Persephone was silent. “Mother doesn't speak about him often, but... he didn't sound very good.”

“Vhat kind of man is Henry? The kind of man your child should be around?”

A quick smile, a flash of sunlight across a cloudy sky, broke onto Persephone’s face. “Yes.”

Lorelai handed Persephone her cup and said, “Now, you vant Henry to be happy, yes?”

“Of course!”

“Do you really think the man will be happy without you? I have seen how he looks at you.”

“Do you really think so?”

“No.” Lorelai reached across the table. “I _know_. You need to stay.”

“I will,” Persephone said, tears slipping from her eyes, glass beads on her skin. Lorelai moved to her and cradled her in her arms.

“There, there. It's okay.”

“Persephone!”

She looked up and Aides stood in the doorframe, hands hanging uselessly by his side. “I was looking everywhere for you,” he said helplessly. He knelt in front of her and held her hands. “What's wrong?” he whispered, smoothing the tears off her face.

Neither of them noticed Lorelai moving away.

“I... I...” she started crying again, harder, and he held her tighter, telling her it was okay (and he loved her).

“You can tell me anything, love. Anything.”

“I think I'm pregnant.”

“Oh,” he breathed.

“And I'm scared, and I don't know what to do, and my mother is going to kill me...” she sobbed.

“Hey, hey,” he rocked her back and forth, “It's alright, it's alright. We'll figure it out. Everything will be fine. Listen,” he took her shoulders and tipped her chin up with one finger so she had to look at him, “I love you. I want to marry you.”

“Okay,” she said, smiling through her tears. “I love you too.”

He grinned broadly. “And your mother won't kill you.”

She snorted. “You're right. She'll kill you.”

“Mothers usually like me,” Aides said with some trepidation.

“She won't,” she assured him. “But marrying me will go a long way to gaining her favor. She just... worries.”

“Of course she does. That's what mothers do.” He began planting kisses all over her face, kissing away her tears.

She giggled. “What are you doing?”

He placed a hand over her stomach. “I can't believe we're having a baby.”

She covered his hand with hers and told him, more seriously, “I don't know for sure that I'm pregnant. If I am, it's only about a month.” Her voice became lighter. “You don't have very long to marry me before people start to have lots of questions.”

“That's fine. I want to marry you as soon as I can. By the end of this week,” he promised.

“People will talk,” she warned.

“People always talk. Let them.”

*****

Herr Heidrich walked Persephone down the aisle. Sarah would be spitting mad she missed her daughter's wedding, but she'd get over it. Aides waited for her next to the minister. She had very little, only a pretty, off-white dress Lorelai had helped her pick, her pomegranate earrings, the necklace Aides gave her for Christmas, and a blue ribbon Lorelai let her borrow to this back her hair.

(Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.)

They were pronounced husband and wife by an American military chaplain, a marriage valid in America. Outside, the first spring flower began to bloom.

They went home the next day.

*****

Aides met her mother the day after they got home. Leah had moved into an apartment in New York City. Neither she nor Aides cared very much. She didn't have to adjust her lifestyle or have a husband, which suited her just fine.

He'd known about Persephone’s heritage for a long time. Actually, she'd been telling him about it, before the wedding (it was too good to be true, after hearing that, he wouldn't want to marry her), and he laughed and told her he had guessed it almost a year ago, and knew for sure when he went to pick up her earrings. There was no hiding the similarity between Persephone and her mother, he'd thought. They had the same beautiful eyes. Then he'd taken her hands and told her, “I know what you're thinking. I promise, I won't leave you.”

She believed him.

And true to her promise, Persephone’s mother did not like him. She didn't trust him for a very long time. She thought he was much too old for her daughter, and, perhaps most damningly, he didn't care for Louis Armstrong. A very talented musician, he agreed, but it just wasn't the first thing he'd pick to listen to.

It was hard to hold a grudge against Aides, though, when Sarah watched him with her daughter. She had awful morning sickness, and he held back her hair. She felt the baby kick, and he would hold his hand to her stomach long before he could feel anything. She was on bedrest the last few weeks of her pregnancy, and he took off work to sit with her and get her whatever she needed.

Persephone woke up crying in the middle of the night. It woke Sarah as well, and she went to her daughter's door. As she stood there, she could hear Aides’s voice comforting Persephone.

She'd had a bad dream. Aides had died during a battle and she and their child had been left alone. Sarah didn't mean to eavesdrop, but she heard him telling her that he'd quit if she wanted. “You and our baby are much more important than a job, any job.”

Two days later, Persephone went into labor. Aides refused to leave her side, holding her hand all seventeen hours until their child slipped, wet and bloody, into the world.

And though she'd long decided her daughter's husband wasn't abhorrent, it wasn't until she watched his face when the doctor announced he had a daughter-- not even a shred of disappointment, only joy-- that she decided he was a good person after all.

“We want to name her after you, if that's okay,” Aides said to Sarah, grinning broadly and completely unable to take his eyes off his daughter. “Macaria Ceres.”

And Macaria looked at her grandmother for the first time, gray eyes and curly black hair, and Sarah's heart melted. Maybe she liked Aides after all.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for the trash lmao
> 
> i did, at least, research the names. even the last names. they mean things.
> 
> i'm sorry if anything about the way i wrote persephone is offensive. i'm not black, but i legit just couldn't picture persephone not being black, so i tried to be, you know, sensitive. if i failed, please tell me (gently or i will cry and no one wants that).


End file.
